I’ve been a journalist for more than 20 years writing about business one way or another. Everything I‘ve learned in all this time can be boiled down to one truth: finance, transportation, marketing, supply chain - no matter what the original subject is all roads lead back to sales.

Angie's List's Big Problem (Groupon's Too)

Angie’s List’s stock woes come almost down to a formulaic equation: overvalued IPO + the end of a 90-day lockup period for shares issued in a secondary offering earlier this year + a Wall Street growing jaundiced about internet stocks in general + a company that hasn’t made a profit in 17 years = a stock price that is down 13% or so from its launch price.

There are other reasons too, largely the reasons behind the fact that Angie’s List remains profitless after all these years.

The business model is one—paying for online recommendations when they can be had for free. The fact it relies so heavily on a sales force to attract advertisers is another, says Mark A. Holder, chief investment officer of Stone Fox Capital Advisors and Covestor model manager tells me.

“Each city the company moves into requires infrastructure, office space, account managers and so on.” In a way, he said, it is like a retail operation that has to build a new store in each city.”

It’s not hopeless, Holder says. Angie’s List “does have a unique service of user reviews and a long history so I think ultimately the key is to getting the investment community to better under the real revenue model.” Maybe in six to twelve months as the stock bottoms out and revenue keeps ramping up, the stock could become attractive, he speculated.

The trouble and expense of maintaining a sales force is something Angie’s List has in common with Groupon, although Angie’s List does not seem to have the extra, let’s call them human resource issues, that Groupon appears to have with its sales force.

The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Groupon’s sales staff is fleeing in droves, poached by competing daily deal sites. Separately, CEO Andrew Mason recently said the company is adding more front-line sales reps–sending analysts already panicked about the stock into another tizzy—but the company’s reputation as an unhappy place to work may proceed it.

Last September Groupon employees filed a class action suit against the company alleging they were owed money for unpaid overtime and bonuses. There have been other signs all is not well in the House of Groupon: in an article earlier this year VentureBeat pointed to negative testimonials running on the website Glass Door that told of pressure to hit unrealistic sales goals, an out-of-touch management and a sales staff that “cries all the time.”

Groupon employees in Europe feel the same way apparently. In the same article VentureBeat told of anonymous emails published in the Berlin based tech blog Village Ventures from Groupon employees alleging “abusive working conditions, breech of contract and a boss, Groupon’s Eastern European CEO Daniel Glasner, who they described as a “slavedriver”.” Glaser responded to VentureBeat with a statement denying the accusation.

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